Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Carol Costello 20150325

Firsthand look at the wreckage. If any of those leaders speak well bring it to you live. Also new this hour, we have new pictures of the black box thats been recovered. The voice flight data recorder is badly damaged. Crews hope to have it working for hours. Key in the investigation, the last eight minutes of that flight. Were covering all of the angels of this story. Our correspondents are at the site and in the countries mourning the loss of all of those aboard. Lets begin with the breaking news. The two americans are among those killed in the crash. Cnns diana magnay is in germany this morning to tell us more. Reporter hi carol. Well thats all i can tell you about these americans, just that two have been confirmed as having been on board. As you said we dont know their names, where they came from. We will be following up on that information, but we do have fresh numbers from the ceo of german wings as to the numbers of people from which country were killed. We know that 72 from germany and 37 he says, from spain. In fact the Spanish Interior Ministry suggests it was a little more than that. Obviously this flight was flying from barcelona to dusseldorf germany, the worst affected. Great britain has confirmed one dead. The netherlands, colombia australia, argentina are beginning to learn more about the people who are killed. Im here in this town and the school behind me lost 16 Exchange Students who had been on a Language Exchange program in spain and were coming back from a week away. The headmaster said tragically they left here 16 happy students. Now we have this terrible tragedy. All morning the students have been coming to lay flowers behind me. There is a book of condolences where they are writing their sorrow. Earlier we spoke to one of the classmates of those that were killed. Lets have a listen to what she said. I knew all of them. They were all in my grade and twoto some i was very close. We already planned things for the future. What we were going to do when they returned from their trip and its very hard to believe that we cannot do that. Carol, these are just some of the stories that are beginning to trickle in. So many across europe and across the world mourn the death of those who died in the alps yesterday, carol. All right. Diana magnay reporting live from germany this morning. Now lets head back to the crash site. Right now some nations are paying their respects to lost country men. The leaders of germany, france, spain are arriving to look at the crash site firsthand. Lets begin with the leaders visit. Erin mclaughlin is at the staging area to tell us more. Reporter hi carol. Thats right. The leaders of germany, france and spain are expected to arrive in this area. We do not believe they will be going to the actual crash site because it is in a remote and difficult to reach location but they are expected to meet with emergency workers in this area who are taking part in a Recovery Mission that is still very much ongoing in the field just behind me all morning weve been seeing helicopters flying in and out, mountaineering experts and we understand from local officials that they have managed to reach the crash site at least some of the choppers and the crash site as i mentioned, is extremely remote reachable really only by air. The terrain there described as incredibly difficult, even icy conditions that theyre having to deal with and local Officials Say that the plane was completely obliterated on impact. The wreckage strewn over a wide area including human remains. Those remains really a priority for officials, a priority for the people here in france to begin that very important identification process of the 150 feel that were on board that plane to begin to remove those bodies. They have yet to remove even one so far so that they can be returned to their loved ones. Theyre also working to try and figure out what exactly happened to this illfated flight. We understand from frances interior minister this morning, he said that the cockpit voice recorder was recovered yesterday, that it had been damaged, although not irreparably. Theyre working to repair it and theyre hoping it happens in the coming hours, carol. Tell us more about the flight data recorder because we had expected to have some information in the coming hours. Is that still true . Yeah i believe what was recovered yesterday was the cockpit voice recorder. Its still unclear where the other black box is. No doubt something that theyre looking for as i speak, but we understand again from frances interior minister that it had been damaged and theyre working to fix it. It seems like theyre optimistic that theyll be getting some information at least today in that regard carol. Erin mclaughlin, reporting live from the crash site. Thank you so much. I want to turn to the investigation. Peter goelz and im joined by Flight Instructor scott miller. Welcome to you both. Thanks for being with me. I appreciate it. Thank you for having us. My pleasure. Lots of information coming in to us right now. There are at least two different time lines, but this is what french officials are telling us this morning. 10 30 in the morning local time all seems well with this flight. At 10 31 the plane starts to descend without authorization. Controllers reach out but get no answer from the cockpit. At 10 35 the plane is at 6500 feet and then it simply disappears from the radar. 10 53 the plane apparently crashes. Now, peter, the crucial time is between 10 30 and 10 31. Why . Well you know you need to know what the last moments were like. What were the flight crew doing . Hopefully the voice recorder which is really profoundly damaged, they will be able to extract the voices from the chips in the recorder. It may take some time but theyll get that data. We need to know what the pilots were doing, what they were saying if they were communicating. If we dont have that last moments, its going to deepen the mystery and we wont know what they were focused on. And you mentioned that the cockpit voice recorder is damaged, peter. Does that mean that we might not know what happened during that crucial minute . No, i think first of all, it just shows the profound force that that plane hit the mountain with. I mean it was going at an extraordinary amount of speed and the damage was profound but they will be able to extract the voices. If theres anything on the recorder theyll be able to get it. Ive seen more damaged recorders where theyve gotten voices off the digital devices. So it may take some time but they will get it. The real key is the data recorder. Thats where the Key Information will be. Scott, youre a pilot. Air Traffic Control reached out to this pilot, to this cockpit at 10 31. No answer. Describe a scenario where you or your co pilot would not answer or send a distress call. Well ive been thinking a lot about that and unfortunately, a direct answer to that question i would have a hard time coming up with one. When we are operating the aircraft even if everything is perfectly normal or we are encountering adverse conditions we ensure it is being flown, we ensure its on the proper flight path and we ensure we are communicating properly. The lack of communication especially during the 8 minute descent is very troubling and very curious at this point. Even if you were trying to right the plane and the plane was in the process of crashing lets say, you could find some time or the copilot could find some time to at least send out a distress call. Yes, thats true. And this the eightminute descent, it does appear obviously that that was an unusual event and that something very compelling caused the crew to make the decision to start down but during that eightminute time frame there should have been adequate time more than enough time to even get a quick message out about why they were descending. If they had experienced a pressurization problem, this is pure speculation, but if they had a pressurization problem we have an actual checklist that we follow to get the aircraft safely descended. Printed is an atc communication item. Interesting. So peter, id like you to take a look at the wreckage and youre going to see the wreckage in a second here. Youre going to see circled areas. The pieces of wreckage in these circled areas are likely pieces of the tail section because theres red on the tail section. There are bigger pieces of the fuselage about the size of a car. As an investigator what can you discern from the debris field . Weve seen debris fields like this in the past. You can go back to value yet, the plane that crashed in the everglades virtually dissin at the great disintegrated as well. It was a very high speed impact. This plane was going in excess of 400 knots probably when it hit the side of the mountain. Youre not going to get much beyond that because the wreckage is so tiny. As captain miller indicated, that eight minute disscent where there was no communication is very troubling and have i concerning. So scott, i also thought it kind of strange that germanwings has not released the pilots wing or any information about the copilot. Why would that be . Well that again, pure speculation, it could be, you know something as simple as family notification ahead of time. Ensuring that, you know in fact the proper names are being released. There may have been a lastminute crew change that may have inserted a little bit of uncertainty. I wouldnt make a lot of that. I think theyre being very careful with the release of data to ensure proper information is released. Peter, why not release any information, at least, about the copilot . Well i think captain millers right. We dont know. It could be that theyre having difficulty reaching out to their next of kin. It may have been a request from german or french authorities. They are going to do extensive background checks on both of these crew members to see whether theres any indication of something that would raise a red flag to investigators. I think lufthansa and the french have been very methodical. They have been very precise. They havent had any missteps in family assistance or in the investigation. I just think theyre doing it in a stepbystep basis. I think well get the names of the crew members in the near future. Peter goelz thank you for your insight. Two americans are involved in the crash. Will adding that to the investigation complicate the field . Well talk about that next. And sometimes i struggle to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day. This is called non24. Learn more by calling 8448242424. Or visit your24info. Com. In new york state, were reinventing how we do business so businesses can reinvent the world. From pharmaceuticals to 3d prototyping, biotech to clean energy. Whether your business is moving, expanding or just getting started. 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Whatever i can do to help compute a cure for cancer, thats what id like to do. Weve just got these pictures in to cnn. You see this helicopter. It just landed near the crash site at the base of the crash site at the base of the french alps. You can see three World Leaders getting off that chopper. Francois hollande. Angela merkel. Its a wonderful gesture theyre there. You have the three there because obviously the plane departed from spain more than 50 passengers on board. 50 of the dead were from spain so thats why lacroix is there. It was going to dusseldorf in germany. Many of the germans are dead. Thats why Angela Merkel is there. It was flying over the french alps. There were french citizens there so Francois Hollande is there. Its called the state of occurrence and it is the french that have the business the bea of france that do the investigation. So theyll be the primary investigating arm of this crash, right . Absolutely. Absolutely. Because we now know that two americans died and you would think the ntsb would get involved in the investigation. Every country under aikoa 13 to give you its full title, every country that has passengers is allowed to take part. They will see documents. It might be that the ntsb has an accredited representative. There will be avionics on board that came from american companies. The ntsb and the bea are usually involved in any Major Incident simply because there is an interest involved and they have the expertise. Do we have rene marsh available . Have you heard anything from the ntsb as of yet this morning . Reporter yes, carol. I spoke with the ntsb. Richard hit it on the head there. Officially the bea, the french equivalent of the ntsb will be leading this investigation for all the reasons he late out but, still, now that we know two americans were on board the ntsb says they are paying close attention. They will have access to any information they are curious about or want to know about because they do have this increased interest. As far as the avionics there may be we dont know all the details of what may have been manufactured by u. S. Companies at this point but that too, raises the interest level for the ntsb. Officially they will not be leading the investigation and as of right now as i speak to you they tell me they are not physically sending someone there, they are monitoring from here. That said their posture is here that the moment that the bea says they need any sort of assistance theyre there and ready to go. I was going to ask you, richard, too many just to pause there. I see pictures thats lacroix, the gentleman with the beard who has joined the group in the sen seynelesalpes. Here are the pictures of all of them. Its nice to see the spectacle. Dont forget these three leaders meet frequently at European Councils so they know each other very well. They are constantly negotiating whether its over greek debt european budgets e. U. Matters, its not unusual for them to be together. Its not often and it speaks to the magnitude and the gravity of whats happened that the three have decided to come together so quickly. This is unusual. Very unusual. Lets talk about the investigation itself. So i heard what rene said. Everybodys ready to help but the french are in charge of the investigation. But there will be pressure from outside sources on french investigators to hurry along wont there be . Might there be . There always is pressure. The french the bea, the bureau they are enormously experienced. Just to pause as they are having a moment of silence. Pressure but the bureau is extremely experienced. They did air france 447. They did concord. Theyve done many many many incidents and theyre very good at releasing information. Theyre extremely good. There will be News Conferences. There will be press conferences. They produced a phenomenal report on 447. Releasing information because for some information im obsessed about the copilot. Weve heard nothing about the copilot. Why is that . Because during the press conference they had, they released information about the pilot but nothing about the copilot. Its going to take time. Its less than 24 hours. They know who was flying the plane. You want to put it into digestible fashion. The first job and duty is not to tell us about the copilot. The first job and duty is to deal with the families the relatives, the crash site the investigation. Now i would imagine we will get a report from the bea very soon that will collate that information. We will not find the name. We will not find the name. A lot of people who want to know about it. French officials came out and said they havent ruled out terrorism but they think its unlikely. Why did they put it in that exact way . Because you would be the first person asking have you ruled out terrorism. Of course. And they havent. Everything remains on the table. This is so different, this incident. This is out of all the realms. Rene marsh has been saying from anything that weve seen before this is absolutely unusual. More unusual than malaysia . That was unusual. I would think that would take the cake. Rene want to bring you into this discussion. I guess its not so unusual for authorities not to release the names of the pilot, the copilot or any real information about them until later . Reporter right. Even when you look here in the United States the ntsb they never release the names of individuals involved in accidents. The names are usually that information usually comes, for example, from the airlines but not the ntsb. Thats just the way it usually works. So it doesnt surprise me that at least at this stage the investigators are not taking it upon themselves to release individuals names. Again, that usually comes from the airline. Just keep in mind as we watch the events unfold over the next few days carol, this is a very remote place. Its difficult to get the recovery of the remains and the aircraft and they are wholly engaged in that task. At the same time lufthansa has to continue running the airline and lufthansa has to get all of the documents for that investigation. So were such early days in this but i think youre going to see a dramatic increase in information, youre going to see a lot more happening now. Certainly now that weve seen the three leaders. Well and they have one of the black boxes although its very damaged. Peter goelz says theyll be able to get information out of there so thats good. Theyll release that probably fairly quickly . Theyll release it on their time scale, not on ours. Thats really the way it goes yes. But heres the interesting point, the ntsb changed the rules by themselves effectively. If you go back to asiana in san francisco. Deborah herzman gave more information than weve ever seen and its the rest of the world following their normal procedures. Its the u. S. That went on this its own frolik of giving much more information, many more press conferences, but luckily the bea does have a history if we look back at 447 of being very transparent, very open in what they release. Thats good. How does this differ at this point, rene than an ntsb investigation . Because the ntsb does hold very lengthy press conferences and theyll inform us beforehand and theyll take questions, et cetera et cetera. Reporter well i mean going back to one of the black boxes found, i mean when you talk about getting the information off of that it is not a lengthy process. So to richards point, i think itll be up to the immediate investigators here the bea, to determine when they feel its worth while to release that information. When were talking about getting tangible evidence or whether or information about exactly what happened that can be done within 24 hours. Its similar to plugging in usb into a computer. That download happens rather quickly. So we should know a lot of information. Whether they will reveal that as soon as they have it or hold on to that until they have the other black box so that they can put it all into context, it remains to be seen because, remember they only have one. And only one box only gives you one side of the story. What vectors may want to do is wait until they find that second box and they can put this into context. They know at what time what happened and what the pilots were saying. Essentially create their own time line so they have a better idea of the chain of events. The one thing that i completely agree with rene they will wait until theyve got both boxes unless there is something on the cockpit voice recorder that indicates a systemic problem, such as the angle of attack, the uncommanded descent. We dont know im just giving you an example. Then they will move very fast to put out some sort of release so that they can deal with it. Erin mclaughlin is somewhere in that crowd of people. Were trying to get her on the phone. Obviously the World Leaders are talking to the recovery people. Were trying to get her. In the meantime. Im never going to fly again. I want rene you, richard to get your fears. Rene you want to go first . The reason this gets so much attention is because this is not a regular occurrence. When you think of the millions of flights that take off, were talking about the handful of incidents, that is why it could get so much attention, because it is not an everyday occurrence. This particular aircraft we know the fatality rate is something like. 14 per every, you know million flights that take off and land. So its an incredibly safe aircraft and air travel itself is incredibly safe but unfortunately when you have a high profile incident like this which were not used to seeing when you consider how many flights take off every day, its going to get this attention. 3 billion passengers a year. Put that into context. 1,000 roughly give or take 1,000 fatalities. That puts it into perspective. I was flying back from my last assignment to cover this on an airbus a320 yesterday. I have absolutely no problem. I will get on one tomorrow. Ill get on one today. Okay. Just to give you the exact statistics around the world, there were just 12 Fatal Airline accidents last year 641 people tragically died but to put that into perspective, thats one accident forever 4. 4 million flights. Right. On that note ill take a break and well come back and talk some more. 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Side effects may include headache pelvic pain, breast pain vaginal bleeding and vaginitis. Estrogens may increase your chances of getting cancer of the uterus, strokes, blood clots or dementia so use it for the shortest time based on goals and risks. Estrogen should not be used to prevent Heart Disease heart attack, stroke or dementia. Ask your doctor about premarin vaginal cream. Youre looking at pictures from the crash site staging area. You see leaders from three countries, Francois Hollande Angela Merkel and they are talking to recovery workers. We expect one of these World Leaders to speak at any moment when they take the microphones, of course well take you back to the french alps. But first lets talk a Little American politics shall we . Hes among the most vocal opponents of obamacare. Just days after ted cruz said he was running for president , he may be changing his tune, i dont think thats true but anyway he may be changing his tune on obamacare at least when it comes to his familys health coverage. Cnns chief Political Correspondent dana bash has more for you. Reporter carol, when ted cruz announced he was going to run for president , along with that he and his Campaign Said his wife heidi would be leaving her job at Goldman Sachs in order to help run for president. Thats where they got Health Insurance for their whole family. With that gone i wanted to know where hes now going to get his insurance. Heres his answer. So shes taking an unpaid leave of absence from her job. Were transitioning. Well presumably get insurance from my job in the senate. Well be on the federal exchange. So you will be getting obamacare effectively . It is one of the good things about obamacare is that the statute provided that members of congress would be on the exchanges without subsidies just like millions of americans so there wouldnt be a double standard. But senator, for right now, the irony is just kind of unbelievable that you have made your name fighting against obamacare and you now are going to sign up to get your insurance through that very process, obamacare. Listen it was the case before obamacare that federal employees could get Health Insurance through their jobs. Thats not a new development so yes, ill get my insurance through my job like millions of other americans. Thats not as shocking would you take a subsidy from your job, which is the federal government . We will follow the text of the law. I strongly oppose the exemption that president obama illegally put in place for members of congress because harry reid and the Senate Democrats didnt want to be under the same rules as the American People. That means you are going to take a government subsidy . I believe we should follow the text of the law. The law that you want to repeal . Yes, no. I believe we should follow the text of every law, even laws i disagree with. Now one key question that the senator didnt answer but his Campaign Later clarified was about getting a subsidy, taking what is effectively an employer contribution which in his case because he works for by the federal government paid for by the taxpayer. He is not going to take that subsidy just like many other republicans who also have obamacare for their Health Care Even though they oppose it they sort of stand on principle by doing that. Now the Cruz Campaign they are pushing back saying look this is not unusual. There are many many republicans who want to repeal obamacare and still have to get it because it is the law of the land. The issue though is ted cruz has been the most vocal opponent of obamacare. He started his president ial campaign on the fifth anniversary of obamacare saying such so it is obviously that is giving the Cruz Campaign some heartburn in terms of trying to explain this issue, carol. All right. Dana bash thanks so much. Joining me now to discuss this further, cnn political commentator anna navorro and host of the Huffington Post live mark lamont hill. Welcome to you both. Good morning, carol. Good to be here. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it. Mark ted cruz sounds reasonable. Hes following the law. Whats wrong with that . Yeah i think some of this is over blown. Were beating up on ted cruz for taking obamacare. I thought he gave the perfect answer with regard to that point. I followed the letter of the law. Obama doesnt. I dont agree with him but i think he gave the right problem. Heres the problem. Dana bash asked him a direct question. He didnt just say no. He said i will follow the letter of the law. We left that interview with the impression that he was going to take the government subsidy, which is optional. Thats what looks bad for him. He could have done cobra, private insurance. I dont knock him for taking the government plan i knock him for taking the government subsidy which is what we left the interview thinking. On the other hand ana, he was doing what was most economical for his family. Isnt that what were all supposed to do . Not all of us are running for president and i think its just off the gate it basically shows ted cruz the scrutiny when you are running for president , the target on your back is going to be that much bigger. First of all i would say to ted cruz you have a great wife and a great woman. Hang on to that woman. Shes putting her career on hold. She was the one that was providing the health care and i know the story a little bit. Know that she also allowed him to take a loan out on the house when he was running so he could continue running the campaign. So if nothing else you have got to say he married well hes got two cute little girls. He has to figure out how to cover them for Health Insurance. So i ithink hes finding himself between a rock and a hard place and following the letter of the law. Mark he did marry a great woman. I heard no mention of her takesing a break from Goldman Sachs, for example. Because it doesnt fit the narrative. This is where ted cruz i think is going to go wrong. Hes of the belief that the Republican Party needs to have an extreme not an extremist, but someone who is a dyed in the wolf conservative not a moderate. Thats not just about policy thats about fitting a particular narrative. He delivers his announcement from liberty university. All of these things are to play a certain nair ra tiff. He doesnt like rock music, he listens to country music. All of this is playing to the political cheap seats. In his mind thats whats necessary to win the presidency. I think hes way off base. I think theyll nominate someone who they think can win an election not someone who plays to the cheap seats. Mark i listen to country music, too, but frankly its because its the only lyrics i can understand these days in american reason. Thats a good reason. Carol, that point i think is unfair. I have heard him, you know that ted cruz is not my cup of tea, but i have heard him talk about his wife and his wifes career at length. Ive heard him do it in private aspects and ive heard him also do it in public appearances. He had a video just before his announcement highlighting some of what his wife and mother have done. Ana and mark thank for your insight. I appreciate it. Were going to take a break. Ill be back with much more in the newsroom. When laquinta. Com sends craig wilson a ready for you alert the second his room is ready, ya know what he becomes . Great proposal letstalk more over golf. Great. How about over tennis . Even better. A game changer the ready for you alert, only at laquinta. Com. The promise of the cloud is that every organization has unlimited access to information, no matter where they are. The microsoft cloud gives our team the power to instantly deliver critical information to people, whenever they need it. Here at accuweather we get up to 10 billion Data Requests every day. The cloud allows us to scale up so we can handle that volume. We can help keep people safe and to us that feels really good. Lets head back to the crash site staging area at the base of the french alps. The three leaders of france germany and spain all talking to recovery workers here and military personnel. Erin mclaughlin is in the crowd somewhere in there. Erin if you can hear me can you set the scene for us . There you are. Reporter hi carol. Thats right. German chancellor Angela Merkel french president francois who will hollande and they are meeting with emergency workers and i overheard them asking if they had been among the first to respond to the crash site. This visit seen as extremely important for these countries, a show of solidarity and respect for the victims as well as the countries mourning the loss of 49 people that were on board that plane were of spanish nationality. 72 were of german nationality and france of course leading this recovery effort. Now the leaders are not expected to visit the crash site itself. Its very difficult. Its in a very remote location. In fact choppers cant land in the area its so remote and so steep though its not known if they were able to fly over the crash site. And the recovery effort very much continuing today. We do know that the recovery workers have managed to reach the area to begin the very important work of repatriating bodies. Identifying and repatriating bodies. We are also working on assessing why and how this crash occurred in the first place, carol. Erin mclaughlin, many things. I want to go to london and check in with isa suarez. She has word on one of the flight data recorders. Can you bring us up to date with the latest information on that . Reporter well do carol. Youre hearing from erin. The french authorities will say the priority is to identify the remains and its a painstaking process, but let me bring you up to date on the other two angles. What you do have you have an air incident investigation and a criminal investigation. Why we have a criminal investigation, because so many people died in this crash. But they have found they have found one of the black boxes. One of these black boxes is an orange box but its called a black box. Its a voice recorder. Ive been told as well they were expecting some news the next three hours from french authorities regarding that voice recorder. Weve seen footage. You can see footage there. It is badly damaged. It is seriously badly damaged, a bit battered. The orange cylinder if we can show it close up the orange cylinder in that voice recorder is intact. Theyre hoping they can take up information from there. We heard from the transport minister from france and he said if the voices had been recorded then theyll be able to actually find out perhaps why it happened. This is the why, carol, not the what. We asked basically deborah herzman, the president of the National Safety council if it is damaged, how much realistically can you get . How much information . Take a listen to what she had to say. So its no surprise to hear that the cockpit voice recorder is damaged because of the type of crash that occurred and the damage that occurred to the rest of the aircraft you probably expect that outside housing or the casing that holds the recorder to be damaged. Whats most critical is that the information thats inside that data is protecting. These are crashworthy fireproof boxes that are designed to withstand these forces. It will be important for them to pull that information off if its usable and they should be able to do this within hours if the data and the solid state recorder is not damaged. Reporter now theyre saying the cylinder in the middle that looks to be intact. Hopefully that will provide more information of like i said french authorities hoping to have some more information, exactly the why in a couple of hours, in three hours or so. But that still leaves one key the other black box and that is the data recorder carol. That will explain the what happened. So many questions regarding exactly what happened why it went cruising altitude within 3 minutes it started descending. Why there was no may day call. So many questions. No doubt well be focusing in honing in on the key minutes between the time of cruising altitude and the descent. Thank you so much. We want to talk about the black box and the coming News Conference that we expect to happen at any time with the three world liedeaders. Weve always heard theyre indestructible. You heard what the experts said. It demonstrates the terrible impact at the crash. Right. So this the box itself is most definitely not indestructible per se but, yes. It is designed to withstand the ferocious forces of an aircraft hitting ground at 500 miles an hour. It is also designed with mh370 in mind to go down 20 30,000 20,000 feet into the ocean. So they are most definitely designed for exact there would be no point, carol, in building a contraption that couldnt withstand these sort of forces. It would be a nonstarter. And what you have here obviously thats just the box ill get back to it in a second. Thats the box its being carried in. So you have the outer casing if you like. Look at that on the left. On the left thats the pinger. In case it was lost at sea or whatever. It also has an emergency locator beacon on it in case it had to be located and the round part is the bit which is solid state. Theres no tape. In the old days it was magnetic tape that would be recorded pulses or a voice. No longer. Its solid state. So providing youve physically got the chip and providing its not been completely destroyed, you can actually extract the data from that. Theyll be able to do that reasonably quickly. As far as whats on the here we go. Thats better. Its not moving. Right. So thats the locator that weve seen before. Over there is the housing and the casing and the electronics. This is the bit that carries the recording. That looks pretty antenic. Absolutely. Its designed to be. Its designed to be more than robust. And this is of course a similar one for the flight data recorder and that is what theyll be able to extract the information. What it will tell us is what the pilots were there are five microphones in the cockpit. One in each of the headsets and then two area mikes and another area mike and they will on different channels and why thats important if i may is because you not only want to hear what were saying to each other, but you also want to hear any external noises so those microphones will pick up the flaps going down wheels being retracted and difference in engine noises if an alarm has gone off and when you read a report it says sound of autopilot disengaging. That particular noise. A lot of information. A lot of information. Of course crucial information is supposedly this oneminute span of time between 10 30 and 10 31. I would say its a bit longer than that. The aircraft reaches its cruise altitude roughly 10 28, 10 27, 10 28. And then at 10 30 around that time it levels out around 10 28. You have two to three minutes where they go through the checklist known as in the cruise. Now a look at the time line. The plane is around 10 31 starts its descent without authorization. The ground asks what are you up to . What are you doing . No answer. And then at 10 35 it disappears from radar. That 10 53 may be a little bit previous. Thats according to french authorities that came out this morning. Two different time lines. Its about a nineminute window in which this takes place. We wont know the exact minutes and seconds until we get the report. Were in the area. Richard qwest, thanks so much. I got to take a break. Well be back with much more in the newsroom. H site. Theyre at the staging area right now. This picture was sent out by the french government. You can see the french president and german chancellor referring to a sheet of paper on the way to a staging area. They are there right now. They have been talking to military personnel on site. We do expect them to Say Something in the coming minutes because there are podiums set up. When that happens, well take you back to the staging area live. In other news this morning, in just over an hour afghan president ashraf ghani will address congress. Its the first visit to the United States since being elected last year. The speech coming on the heels of president obama granting ghanis request to keep 10,000 u. S. Troops in afghanistan until the end of the year. Previous plans was to cut that number in half. Lets talk about that with cnn Global Affairs analyst. What do you expect the afghan president to say . Hell get a warm reception in congress. His number one virtue is that hes not his predecessor. Hes not hamid karzai. He had become particularly in his second term very difficult to work with for the u. S. He was a hurdle to a lot of things. Ghani takes a more sober approach to the problems in afghanistan. Hes asking for greater help. The Obama Administration has already responded positively and so far thats gotten bipartisan support in congress. So i think he will get a good reception. He will say things that congress likes to hear. I think hell say that hes grateful for american support and say its important. Thats a big deal. He said that before. He said that. They thanked america for its help in afghanistan and that goes a long way. It certainly does particularly this time when youre asking for more help and asking for money. Hes also been very smart. Its not just about military support. Hes also said for instance that aid from the United States should be linked to reforms to actual achievements from his government. His government is suggesting this which is a positive step which conveys a sense of a desire to make things happen. In his first trip to america years and years ago his predecessor seemed like a transformational figure. Its right to be skeptical. At least at this moment hes saying all of the right things and congress will appreciate that. Help the American People understand why afghanistan needs u. S. Troops to stay longer. Why cant they get it together for themselves . Well they were badly devastated in the war and the taliban remains despite americas best efforts the coalitions best efforts, the taliban remains a huge presence controls large parts of the country. Yes, the Afghan Military forces are about 300,000 strong. Its a large number of people. The quality of those forces is very questionable. Havent american personnel been training those afghan troops for the last ten years . Theyve been training some of them. There are some elements within the afghan troops who are really quite good and taking the fight back to the taliban but the large majority of them are not. Try putting an army up from scratch and look at what we learned in iraq despite the training you can give them is not easy. It takes a lot of time and takes a long period of peace. Its hard to build an army when youre still at war. When the taliban is actively killing people attacking not just towns and villages but also military attachments. Its difficult to create an army. Is there a sense you can teach men how to fight but you cant teach them nationalism, love of country . Its more complex. Its not easy to learn command and control. Its one thing to learn how to fight. They have to feel a sense of national duty. It was hard to do that under karzai when the president and some members of his family were on the take or were very corrupt. It was hard to feel loyalty to a government that is not serving your interests. It also as any military commander will tell you, command and control, what to do when youre attacked and who to his to and how to follow orders despite what youre seeing how to recognize that somebody who has a 30,000foot view is the person you should be listening to. These are things in the heat of battle that take a lot of training and its not simply training that you can give them in a military base behind closed wall but training in actual combat. Bobby ghosh, thank you for your insight. I appreciate it. The next hour of cnn newsroom starts now. Good morning. Im carol costello. Thanks so much for joining me this morning. Right now the leaders of germany, france and spain are on site for a firsthand look at the wreckage of Germanwings Flight 9525. They are expected to speak moments from now. Of course when they do that well bring that to you live. In all, at least 15 countries are mourning the loss of their citizens today. Also know that were just finding out investigators are starting body identification but they say that could take days. Two americans now confirmed to have been aboard that flight. We dont know their names or where theyre from. Were hoping that information will come into us at any time. Also jarring images of the black box thats been recovered. As you can see, the voice flight recorder is badly damaged. The crews hope to have it working within hours. Key in the investigation, the final eight minutes of the flight when that airliner descended more than 30,000 feet for some